UC-NRLF 


SB    37    747 


o 

<M 
^t 

CM 

O 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


OF 

• 

CONTINENTAL 

PAPER    MONEY. 


SAMUEL    BRECK. 

\\ 


PHILADELPHIA: 

JOHN  C.  CLARK,  PRINTER,  60  DOCK  STREET. 

1843. 


Tb? 


I 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


CONTINENTAL    PAPER    MONEY. 


IN  this  brief  History  of  Continental  Paper  Money,  I  shall  endea- 
vour to  trace  its  origin,  rapid  increase  and  downfall ;  the  cause  of  its 
depreciation ;  the  honest  intention  of  Congress  to  redeem  it ;  set  forth 
the  mode  suggested  by  that  body  for  its  full  payment ;  and  inciden- 
tally show  its  powerful,  if  not  indispensable  agency  in  gaining  our 
Independence. 

I  propose,  moreover,  to  demonstrate,  that  the  non-redemption  of 
that  paper  money  operated  upon  the  people  of  that  day,  by  its  gradual 
depreciation,  [until  its  final  extinction,]  as  nothing  more  than  a  mo- 
derate tax ;  that  no  sentiment  of  repudiation  was  ever  entertained  by 
Congress;  that  many  examples,  before  and  since,  both  in  Europe 
and  America,  may  be  alleged,  in  extenuation  of  the  neglect  this  pa- 
per met  with ;  and  I  shall  conclude  with  a  short  review  [by  a  foreign 
pen  principally]  of  the  temper  of  the  people  during  the  Revolution; 
the  effect  this  unsettled  currency,  for  so  long  a  period,  had  on  their 
morals ;  and  attempt  a  comparison  between  the  Americans  of  that 
day  and  of  this. 
!  On  the  10th  of  May,  1775,  immediately  after  the  battle  of  Lex- 


M208227 


ington,  Congress  prepared  its  first  emission  of  Continental  Colonial 

_ 
Bills,  and  on  the  22d  of  June,  as  soon  as  the  news  of  the  battle  of 

Bunker  Hill  reached  Philadelphia,  two  millions  of  Spanish  milled 
dollars,  [so  called,]  purporting  to  be  for  the  defence  of  America, 
were  put  in  circulation ;  the  con  federated -Colonies  standing  pledged 
for  their  redemption. 

Congress  appointed  twenty-eight  citizens  of  Philadelphia  to  sign 
and  number  the  bills:  the  names  of  two  being  necessary  to  each  bill. 
Each  gentleman  was  allowed,  out  of  the  Continental  treasury,  one 
dollar  and  one-third  for  each  and  every  thousand  bills  signed  and 
numbered  by  him.  At  foot  will  be  found  the  names  of  the  persons 
entrusted  with  this  duty.* 

Contracts  were  made  with  printers  for  proper  paper,  and  for  print- 
ing them.  To  administer  these  paper  funds,  joint  treasurers  were 
appointed  at  a  salary  of  five  hundred  dollars ;  and  the  number  of  in- 
habitants of  all  ages,  including  negroes  and  mulattoes,  in  each  Co- 
lony, was  taken,  by  approximation  of  course,  in  order  to  levy  the 
ways  and  means  to  pay  the  bills  whenever  they  should  be  presented 
at  the  treasury.  They  were  taken  for  taxes  and  cancelled ;  and  in 
order  to  keep  up  their  credit,  the  treasurers  were  directed,  whenever 


*Luke  Morris, 

Daniel  Clymer, 

Anthony  Morris, 

Samuel  Meredith, 

John  M.  Nesbit, 

Mordecai  Lewis, 

Judah  Foulke, 

Thomas  Barclay, 

George  Mifflin, 

Samuel  Morris, 

John  Bayard, 

Robt.  Tuckniss, 

Frederick  Kuhl, 

Wm.  Craig, 

Andrew  Bunner, 

Robert  S.  Jones. 

Thomas  Bartow, 

William  Jackson, 

Thomas  Gombe, 

John  Slice, 

Jos.  Sims, 

Ellis  Lewis,  Isaac  Hazlehurst,  James  Milligan, 

John  Mease,  Robert^Morris,  James  Reed. 

Thomas  Lawrance, 


they  happened  to  receive  silver  or  gold,  to  advertise  their  readiness 
to  pay  the  same  for  Continental  Bills  to  all  persons  requiring  an  ex- 
change. 

In  November  of  the  same  year,  three  millions  came  out  in  bills  of 
various  value,  as  low  as  one-third,  one-half,  and  two-thirds  of  a  dol- 
lar, and  from  one  dollar  to  eighty.  The  Colonies  were  called  upon 
to  sink  proportionally  a  sum  of  three  millions.  In  fixing  the  pro- 
portion to  redeem  that  amount,  Virginia  was  rated  the  highest,  and 
stood  charged  with  -  -  $496,000 

Massachusetts  came  next,  at     -  -       434,000 

Pennsylvania,  third,  at  -        372,000 

Maryland,  fourth,  at     -  -       310,000 

and  in  the  fifth  class  there  are  four  Colonies,  all  rated  alike;  name- 
ly, Connecticut,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and  New  York ! 
Each  of  these  rated  at  -     8248,000 

By  the  foregoing  scale  we  find  the  relative  wealth,  by  Congres- 
sional estimation,  of  those  Colonies,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
sixty -eight  years  ago.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  State  of 
New  York,  the  capital  of  which  was  then  unoccupied  by  the  enemy, 
is  placed  at  little  more  than  half  of  Massachusetts,  while  Boston  was 
in  the  possession  of  the  British. 

On  the  occasion  of  a  subsequent  recommendation  of  a  new  tax, 
when  the  City  of  New  York  was  held  by  the  British,  Congress  as- 
sessed the  State  of  New  York  at  one-fourth  of  Virginia  and  Massa- 
chusetts, and  at  a  less  sum  than  New  Jersey.  The  City  of  New 
York,  at  that  period,  was  a  town  of  small  dimensions  and  moderate 
commerce. 

In  the  month  of  June  of  the  year  1787,  on  my  return  from  a  re- 
sidence of  a  few  years  in  France,  I  arrived  at  that  city,  and  found  it 


a  neglected  place,  built  chiefly  of  wood,  and  in  a  state  of  prostration 
and  decay.  A  dozen  vessels  in  port;  Broadway,  from  Trinity 
Church  inclusive  down  to  the  Battery,  in  ruins,  owing  to  a  fire  that 
had  occurred  when  the  city  was  occupied  by  the  enemy,  during  the 
latter  end  of  the  war.  The  ruined  walls  of  the  burnt  houses  stand- 
ing on  both  sides  of  the  way,  testifying  to  the  poverty  of  the  place, 
five  years  after  the  conflagration:  for  although  the  war  had  ceased 
during  that  period,  and  the  enemy  had  departed,  no  attempt  had  been 
made  to  rebuild  them.  In  short,  there  was  silence  and  inactivity 
every  where ;  and  the  whole  population  was  very  little  over  twenty 
thousand. 

One  can  scarcely  realize  her  rapid  increase  from  so  small  a  con- 
dition, at  so  recent  a  period,  to  her  size  and  importance  in  the  pre- 
sent day,  when  she  may  be  classed  for  population,  wealth  and  trade, 
among  the  chief  cities  of  the  world. 

Before  the  close  of  the  year  1775,  a  census  of  the  inhabitants  was 
ordered  by  Congress  for  a  due  apportionment  of  taxes;  and  on  the 
last  day  but  one  of  that  year,  it  was  resolved  that  the  silver  and  gold 
in  the  treasury  be  counted,  and  forwarded  to  the  northern  army 
under  a  guard,  and  that  the  treasurers  be  empowered  to  employ  a 
broker  to  collect  silver  and  gold  in  exchange  for  Continental  Paper. 

Early  the  next  year,  difficulties  began  to  arise.  The  bills  were 
sometimes  refused ;  confidence  was  weakened ;  and  depreciation  fol- 
lowed. Then  came  from  Congress  and  the  committees  of  safety, 
threatening  resolutions  denouncing  the  refractory.  It  was  the  first 
serious  emergency,  and  required  prompt  relief.  Patriotic  men  who 
had  the  means,  stepped  forward  to  redeem  the  bills  at  par;  some  of 
whom  exchanged  as  much  as  a  thousand  pounds  in  silver  for  a  like 
sum  in  paper.  When  Congress,  hastening  to  propose  a  remedy, 


"  Resolved,  that  if  any  person  shall  hereafter  be  so  lost  to  all  virtue 
and  regard  for  his  country,  as  to  refuse  to  receive  the  bills  in  pay- 
ment, or  obstruct  and  discourage  the  currency  or  circulation  thereof, 
and  shall  be  duly  convicted  by  the  committee  of  safety  of  the  district, 
such  person  shall  be  deemed,  published  and  treated  as  an  enemy  of 

the  country,  and  precluded  from  all  trade  or  intercourse  with  the 

I 

inhabitants  of  these  colonies." 

On  the  26th  December,  1776,  General  Washington  was  autho- 
rized to  arrest  and  confine  those  who  rejected  the  Continental  cur- 
rency, and  make  a  return  of  their  names  to  the  authorities  of  the 
States  in  which  they  resided.     The  council  of  safety  of  Pennsylvania 
was  invited  to  take  most  vigorous  and  speedy  steps  for  punishing  all 
such  as  refused  the  bills,  and  the  General  was  directed  to  give  aid 
to  the  council :  meantime  Virginia  and  the  other  States  were  be-  \ 
sought  to  furnish  all  the  gold  and  silver  they  could  procure,  and  take   \ 
paper  in  exchange. 

In  May,  1776,  five  millions  were  again  emitted,  and  in  the  autumn, 
five  millions  more.  Although  some  specie  was  imported,  it  could  not 
avail  against  such  profuse  issues.  Credit,  already  on  the  wane,  con- 
tinued to  sink.  The  States  did  not  respond  to  the  call  for  aid ;  the 
power  of  taxing  was  virtually  denied,  by  its  shackled  conditions  in 
the  articles  of  confederation,  and  paper  continuing  to  depreciate,  an 
attempt  was  made,  in  imitation  of  the  mother  country,  to  raise  a 
revenue  by  the  establishment  of  a  national  lottery.  The  trial  was 
a  failure ;  for  the  scheme,  which  was  to  sell  tickets  for  specie,  at 
twenty  dollars,  and  pay  the  prizes  in  treasury  notes,  bearing  four 
per  cent,  interest,  did  not  induce  many  to  adventure;  so  that  no 
other  resource  was  left  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  than  a  fresh 
emission  of  paper  money.  But  the  people  refusing  to  sell  their  pro- 


8 

duce  for  it  at  par,  Washington  was  authorized  to  seize  the  supplies 
for  the  army  wherever  he  could  find  them,  and  imprison  those  who 
rejected  the  bills  offered  in  payment. 

The  years  1776  and  1777  proved  as  unpropitious  to  the  paper 
credit  as  the  preceding;  and  very  strong  measures  were  resorted  to 
for  the  purpose  of  fixing,  by  constraint,  a  value  on  the  currency ;  of 
compelling  the  people  to  receive  as  substance  a  mere  shadow;  of 
putting  the  stamp  of  reality  on  a  fiction :  measures  which  were  at 
variance  with  justice  and  expediency,  and  which  operated  on  the 
people  with  the  harshness  of  despotism.  The  resolutions  which  fol- 
low will  show  the  bad  temper  of  the  great  men  who  ruled  at  the  head 
of  affairs,  and  their  momentary  forgetfulness  of  the  rights  of  their 
constituents. 

On  the  3d  of  December,  1777,  Congress  recommended  to  the  le- 
gislative authorities  of  the  respective  States  to  enact  laws,  requiring 
persons  possessed  of  bills  of  credit,  struck  under  the  sanction  and 
authority  of  the  King  of  Great  Britain,  forthwith  to  deliver  the  same 
to  be  exchanged  for  Continental  Money :  and  those  which  shall  not 
be  so  delivered  in,  shall  thenceforth  become  utterly  irredeemable. 

Again  they  "Resolved  (in  1777),  that  the  Continental  Money 
ought  to  be  supported,  at  the  full  value  expressed  in  the  respective 
bills,  by  the  people  of  these  States,  who  stand  bound  to  redeem  the 
same  according  to  the  like  value,  and  to  guard  against  the  pernicious 
artifices  of  the  enemies  of  liberty,  who  impair  the  credit  of  said  bills 
by  raising  the  nominal  value  of  gold  and  silver"  It  was  further 
"  Resolved,  that  all  bills  of  credit  emitted  by  Congress  ought  to  pass 
current  in  all  payments,  trade  and  dealings,  in  these  States,  and 
be  deemed  in  value  equal  to  the  Spanish  dollar;  and  it  is  recom- 
mended to  the  Legislatures  of  these  States,  to  pass  laws  inflicting 


forfeitures  and  other  penalties  on  all  who  do  not  sell  their  lands, 
houses,  goods,  &c.,  for  Continental  Bills  at  specie  value;  and  that 
the  said  Legislatures  be  requested  to  enact  laws  to  make  the  bills  of 
credit  issued  by  Congress  a  lawful  tender  in  payment  of  public 
and  private  debts ;  and  a  refusal  thereof,  an  extinguishment  of  such 
debts:  that  debts  payable  in  sterling  money  be  discharged  with 
.continental  dollars  at  four  shillings  and  sixpence  sterling  per  dollar 
[that  is  to  say,  at  par],  and  that  in  discharge  of  all  other  debts  and 
contracts,  continental  dollars  pass  at  the  rate  of  a  Spanish  milled 
dollar." 

Buoyed  up  by  these  enactments,  Congress  sent  forth,  on  the  22d 
of  May,  five  millions  of  dollars  of  various  denominations,  decorated 
with  new  emblems,  escutcheons  and  secret  marks,  to  prevent  coun- 
terfeiting. And  this  emission  was  followed  by  another  of  one  mil- 
lion, and  on  the  7th  of  November  by  one  million  more. 

The  pernicious  legislation  just  adverted  to  could  result  in  nothing 
but  the  ruin  of  the  confiding  patriot,  while  it  enabled  the  unprinci- 
pled debtor  to  pay  his  debts  at  an  enormous  discount.  That  result 
soon  became  evident,  and  to  a  degree  so  alarming,  that  Congress 
earnestly  besought  the  states  to  repeal  their  iniquitous  tender-laws; 
those  very  laws  which  had  been  so  pressingly  recommended  by  that 
body  itself  not  many  months  before. 

The  whole  amount  of  paper  money  issued  during  the  war,  was 
about  three  hundred  millions  of  dollars ;  but  the  collections  made  by 
the  Continental  government  in  various  ways,  cancelled,  from  time  to 
time,  the  one-third :  so  that  the  maximum  of  circulation,  at  no  one 
period,  exceeded  two  hundred  millions.  Nor  did  it  reach  that  sum, 
until  its  depreciation  had  compelled  Congress  to  take  it  in,  and  pay 
it  out,  at  the  rate  of  forty  paper  dollars  for  one  in  hard  money. 

B 


10 

It  kept  nearly  at  par  for  the  first  year,  during  which  period  only 
nine  millions  were  issued;  an  amount  about  equal  to  the  specie  then 
held  in  all  the  colonies.  And  when  used  in  that  moderate  way,  it 
passed  with  very  little  depreciation ;  but  soon  after,  when  the  emis- 
sions increased  rapidly,  it  fell  proportionably  in  value,  going  on  from 
year  to  year,  in  its  downward  course,  until  Congress,  as  we  have 
seen  above,  fixed  the  scale,  by  law,  at  forty  for  one.  But  million 
following  million  in  quick  succession,  lessened  its  exchangeable  rate, 
from  day  to  day,  to  the  agio  of  five  hundred,  and  then  one  thousand, 
for  one,  when  it  ceased  to  circulate. 

Congress  had  exchanged  some  of  the  notes  at  forty  for  one,  by 
giving  the  holder  loan  office  certificates  at  par,  and  offered  to  redeem 
the  whole  in  the  same  way,  at  one  thousand  for  one,  when  they  had 
sunk  to  that  price.  But  those  very  loan  office,  and  other  certificates 
of  debt,  bore  in  market  no  higher  price  than  two  shillings  and  six- 
pence on  the  pound,  or  eight  dollars  for  one;  so  that  very  few 
availed  themselves  of  that  offer. 

Those  public  securities  bearing  various  names,  such  as  loan  office 
certificates,  depreciation  certificates,  final  settlements,  &c.,  were 
given  to  the  public  creditors,  who  had  demands  for  moneys  lent, 
supplies  furnished,  services  rendered,  &c.,  and  constituted  the  Con- 
gressional debt  at  the  end  of  the  war.  They  consisted  of  obligations 
or  bonds,  bearing  interest  at  six  per  cent.,  and  were  entirely  distinct 
in  character  and  tenor  from  the  money  bills,  which  bore  no  interest, 
and  were-  used  altogether  as  currency.  The  value  of  those  certifi- 
cates in  market,  as  I  have  already  said,  was  not  more  than  seven  or 
eight  for  one,  until  the  adoption  of  the  present  Constitution  in  1789, 
when  they  were  funded,  and  rose  to  gar. 

In  the  Journal  of  Congress  of  the  29th  April,  1783,  an  estimate 


11 

of  the  whole  revolutionary  debt  is  given  [except  the  paper  money], 
and  it  stands  thus : — 

1.  Foreign  debt  to  France  and  Holland,  $  7,885,085  00 

2.  Domestic  debt,  in  various  certificates,  as  above,      34,115,290  06 


842,000,375  00 

The  foreign,  bearing  interest  at  four  and  five  per 

cent.,  and  amounting  to  -  -     $    369,038  06 

The  domestic  at  six  per  cent.,  and  amounting  to  2,046,917  04 


$2,415,956  10 

When  the  constitution,  by  which  we  are  now  governed,  went  into 
operation,  Alexander  Hamilton,  the  first  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
added  to  the  domestic  debt  the  claims  held  by  several  States  against 
the  national  exchequer,  to  the  amount  of  twenty-one  million  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  then  funded  the  whole,  by  putting 
a  part  on  interest  at  six  per  cent,  immediately ;  postponing  a  part, 
without  interest,  for  ten  years,  and  then  to  bear  six  per  cent; 
and  the  remainder  on  immediate  interest  at  three  per  cent.  The 
arrears  of  six  years'  interest  were  added,  which,  with  some  other  un- 
settled claims,  made  the  whole  debt  amount  to  ninety -four  millions. 

Accustomed  as  we  are,  at  the  present  day,  to  the  large  expendi- 
ture of  the  federal  government,  we  may  well  be  astonished  at  the 
economy  of  the  first  year  of  Washington's  administration,  when  the 
civil  list  was  estimated  at  two  hundred  and  eight  thousand  dollars, 
and  the  war  department  at  only  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  thou- 
sand, including  even  the  Indian  supplies. 


12 

The  establishment  of  a  revenue  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  debt,  in 
1789,  was  equivalent  to  a  capital  (by  bringing  that  debt  to  par)  of 
nearly  one  hundred  millions,  the  greater  part  of  which  was  held  by 
our  own  citizens :  this  was  the  cause  of  immediate  prosperity,  and 
of  the  brilliant  career  which  continued  for  many  years  after.  Every 
dollar  of  this  aggregate  debt  was,  as  we  all  know,  most  honourably 
paid. 

I  have  deviated  from  the  main  subject,  for  a  moment,  in  order  to 
give  a  brief  exposition  of  the  first  national  debt,  under  the  funding 
system  of  a  celebrated  financier,  and  now  return  to  the  consideration 
of  the  unredeemed  paper  money. 

The  illustrious  statesmen  of  the  revolutionary  Congress  had  the 
best  disposition  to  pay  that  currency,  and  they  professed  to  have  the 
ability  so  to  do.  They  felt  themselves  bound  in  honour  to  discharge, 
at  their  full  value,  bills  emitted  by  themselves,  and  bearing  on  their 
face  a  solemn  engagement  to  redeem  them  in  Spanish  dollars,  or  the 
value  thereof,  in  gold  or  silver.  To  do  this,  however,  required  a 
season  of  tranquillity;  but  the  country  was  invaded  by  land  and  by 
water;  it  required  power  to  levy  taxes,  and  this  was  denied  them; 
it  required  the  industry  of  peaceful  times  to  enable  the  people  to  con- 
tribute; but  the  war,  in  constant  activity,  baffled  every  attempt  at 
regular  employment.  Congress  had  not  even  a  choice  of  evils ; 
they  had  no  alternative.  One  source  of  revenue  only  was  at  their 
command,  and  that  was  the  emission  of  bills  of  credit.  The  very 
necessity  of  the  case  forced  them  to  misuse  and  abuse  it ;  for  even 
in  its  depreciated  condition,  paper  money  offered  facilities  so  attrac- 
tive, that  the  great  men  at  the  head  of  affairs,  always  intending  to 
pay  them,  were  glad  to  find  the  people  willing,  at  the  current  ex- 


13 

change,  to  receive  that  which  could  be  so  easily  and  liberally  sup- 
plied. 

"  Who,"  said  a  member  during  a  debate  upon  this  subject,  "  will 
consent  to  load  his  constituents  with  taxes,  when  we  can  send  to  our 
printer  and  get  a  wagon  load  of  money,  and  pay  for  the  whole  with 
a  quire  of  paper?"  And  with  wagon  loads  thus  cheaply  obtained, 
they  carried  on  the  campaigns  of  the  two  years,  1778  and  1779, 
keeping  an  army  of  thirty  or  forty  thousand  men  in  the  field,  issuing 
paper  to  the  amount  of  sixty-three  millions  for  the  former  year,  and 
seventy-two  millions  for  the  latter;  and  thus,  with  an  active  printing 
press,  and  a  few  commissioners  hired  by  the  day  or  by  the  job  to 
sign  the  bills,  ways  and  means  were  found  to  defray  almost  the 
whole  expense  of  the  civil  list,  the  army  and  navy,  and  contingen- 
cies. There  was,  indeed,  a  little  hard  money  passing  through  the 
treasury.  The  exact  sums  received  in  both  those  years  having  been 
officially  reported  to  Congress,  stand  recorded  on  their  journals.  If 
it  were  not  attested  in  this  authentic  shape,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
believe  it.  Marvellous  as  it  may  appear,  the  aggregate  of  gold  and 
silver  received  into  the  treasury  for  the  year  1778  was  only  seventy- 
eight  thousand  six  hundred  and  sixty-six  dollars  [878,666] ;  and  for 
the  year  1779  the  sum  of  seventy-three  thousand  dollars  [$73,000]: 
so  that  the  whole  machinery  of  government  was  carried  on,  for  two 
entire  years,  as  far  as  concerned  the  agency  of  specie,  with  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty-one  thousand  six  hundred  and  sixty-six  dollars ! !  So 
small  an  expenditure,  in  metallic  currency,  shows  the  powerful 
agency  of  paper  in  the  belligerent  operations  at  that  critical  period ; 
performing  as  it  did,  in  spite  of  counterfeits  and  depreciation,  the 
office  of  hard  money. 

This  handful  of  solid  coin,   which,  in  gold,  would  weigh  only 


14 

seven  hundred  pounds,  and  might  be  put  into  a  wheelbarrow,  was 
all  that  came,  as  we  have  seen,  into  the  public  chest  for  two  years; 
and  we  may  not  be  surprised  at  government  being  so  chary  of  it,  as 
to  refuse  General  Washington's  demand  of  a  small  share,  to  pay  a 
part  of  the  bounty  to  enlisted  soldiers.  In  denying  him,  they  de- 
clared that  the  precious  metals  must  be  kept  for  the  commissaries  of 
prisoners,  to  be  used  where  paper  would  not  pass. 

Paper  money  continued  to  be  the  chief  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
government.  The  press  was  kept  in  perpetual  motion.  Printers 
who  laboured  at  it  obtained  an  exemption  from  militia  duty.  Rag- 
ged and  torn  notes  were  replaced,  and  bills  of  every  denomination 
were  issued  in  millions. 

The  form  of  those  bills,  as  settled  by  Congress,  was  thus : 

CONTINENTAL  CURRENCY. 
No Dollar 

This  bill  entitles  the  bearer  to  receive Spanish  milled  dol- 
lars, or  the  value  thereof  in  gold  or  silver,  according  to  a  resolution 
of  Congress. 

On  each  bill  was  stamped  a  rudely  printed  emblem,  with  a  Latin 
motto,  amounting  in  number  to  twenty.  Those  devices  and  pithy 
sentences  are  said  to  have  been  composed  by  Benjamin  Franklin  and 
Charles  Thompson,  aided  by  the  Latinists  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress. 

Those  mottoes,  placed  opposite  to  each  denomination  of  the  bills, 
are  as  follows : — 

Denomination 
of  the  Bills. 

1  Dollar.    Depressa  Resurgit. 

2  Tribulatio  Ditat. 


If) 

3  Dollars.  Exitus  in  dubio  est. 

4  „  Aut  Mors,  aut  vita  Decora. 

5  „  Sustine  vel  Abstine. 

6  „  Perseverando. 

7  „  Serenabit. 

8  „  Majora  Minoribus  consonant. 
20  „  Vi  concitatse. 

30       „         Si  recte  facies. 

30       „         (On  the  reverse)  cessante  vento  conquiescemus. 

35       „         Hinc  opes. 

40       „         The  only  English  motto — "Confederation,"  except 

on  the  bills  of  a  fractional  part  of  a  dollar. 
45       „         Sic  floret  Respublica. 
50       „         Perennis. 
55       „         Post  Nubila  Phoebus. 
60       „         Deus  regnat  Exultet  Terra. 
65       „         Fiat  Justitia. 

70       „         Quadrennium  Sustinuit,  Vim  Procellarum. 
80       „         Florescebit  et  in  Secula  Seculomm. 
Eighty  was  the  highest  denomination  issued. 
On  the  small  bills  of  one-third,  one-half,  and  two-thirds  of  a  dol- 
lar, "Fugio"  was  the  Latin  motto,  and  in  English,  "mind  your 
business." 

Decorated  with  these  fine  maxims,  Congress  sent  forth  this  cheap 
defence  of  the  nation,  with  a  recommendation  to  the  Legislatures  of 
the  States  not  only  to  make  the  bills  a  lawful  tender  in  payment  of 
public  and  private  debts,  but  in  case  of  refusal  to  receive  them,  to 
declare  such  refusal  an  extinguishment  of  the  debt. 

They  were  requested,  likewise,  to  stop  the  emission  of  their  own- 


State  paper,  and  to  adopt  the  Congressional  currency 


16 

for  a  circu- 


> 
lating  medium. 


Conventions,  to  consist  of  four  or  five  adjacent  States,  were,  more- 
over, designated  by  Congress  as  necessary,  in  order  to  regulate  the 
price  of  labour,  manufactures,  country  produce,  and  all  imported 

goods,  as  well  as  the  charges  of  inn-holders;  and  to  enact  suitable 

i 

laws  \tp  empower  the  commissaries  of  the  army  to  take  from  fore- 
stallers,  engrossers  and  others,  who  might  have  a  larger  supply  than 
their  families  required,  all  such  articles  for  government  use  as  were 
wanted,  and  at  such  cost  as  the  law  thus  enacted  should  fix.  The 
price  of  provisions,  and  of  every  thing  needed  by  the  army,  was  to 
be  settled  also  in  this  arbitrary  way :  and  all  for  the  purpose,  say 
1 1  Congress,  of  checking  "  a  spirit  of  sharping  and  extortion,  and  the 
rapid  and  excessive  rise  of  every  thing."  Amid  all  these  coercive 
regulations,  it  could  not  but  be  obvious  to  every  thinking  man,  that 
the  only  cause  of  the  derangement  of  the  prices  was  the  excessive 
issue  of  paper. 

In  the  year  1778,  a  very  laudable  effort  was  made  to  create  a 
sinking  fund,  by  establishing  an  annual  tax  of  six  millions  of  dollars 
for  eighteen  years.  A  committee  was  directed  to  prepare  a  plan 
that  should  specifically  appropriate  that  sum  to  the  extinguishment 
of  the  Continental  debt.  Yet  very  little  confidence  was  placed  in 
those  good  intentions,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  rapid  depreciation  at 
this  period ;  which,  indeed,  was  such,  that  Congress  could  no  longer 
force  the  circulation  at  prescribed  rates,  in  reference  to  metallic 
money;  and  it  was,  therefore,  resolved  by  that  body,  on  the  8th  of 
October,  1778,  "that  all  limitation  of  prices  of  silver  and  gold  be 
taken  off." 

The  circular  to  the  States,  when  the  tax  for  the  year  1779  was 


17 

called  for,  is  a  very  moving  address,  replete  with  ardent  feeling,  and 
contains,  among  other  matter,  the  following  in  relation  to  paper 
money: —  3  J~ 

"  Being  in  the  outset  at  war,  without  arms  or  ammunition,  without 
military  discipline  or  permanent  finances,  without  an  established 
government  or  allies,  enfeebled  by  habitual  attachments  to  our  very 
enemies,  we  were  precipitated  into  all  the  expensive  operations  inci- 
dent to  a  state  of  war,  with  one  of  the  most  formidable  nations  on 
earth — we,  from  necessity,  embraced  the  expedient  of  emitting  paper 
money  on  the  faith  of  the  United  States;  an  expedient  which  had 
often  been  successfully  practised  in  separate  colonies,  while  we  were 
subject  to  British  dominion.  Large  issues  were  of  consequence  ne- 
cessary, and  the  paper  currency  multiplied,  of  course,  beyond  what 
was  required  for  the  purposes  of  a  circulating  medium.  To  raise 
the  value  of  our  paper  money,  nevertheless,  and  to  redeem  it,  will 
not,  we  are  persuaded,  be  difficult."  They  only  ask  for  time  and 
patience,  and  fix  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1797,  or  about  eighteen 
years,  for  the  full  payment  of  their  debts. 

A  few  months  after,  when  the  depreciation  of  the  currency  kept 
on  increasing,  that  illustrious  Congress  raised  its  voice  again,  in  the 
following  appeal:-  *$=<*  v  j_ 

"  America,  almost  totally  stripped  of  commerce,  and  in  the  weak- 
ness of  youth,  as  it  were,  with  « a  staff  and  a  sling  only,'  dared,  *  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,'  to  engage  a  gigantic  adversary  pre- 
pared at  all  points,  boasting  of  his  strength,  and  of  whom  even 
mighty  warriors  'were  greatly  afraid.'  Our  enemies  prosecuting 
the  war  by  sea  and  land  with  implacable  fury,  taxation  at  home  and  » 

borrowing  abroad,  in  the  midst  of  difficulties  and  dangers,  were  alike 
impracticable.  Hence  the  necessity  of  new  emissions." 


18 

The  whole  of  this  address^  too  long  for  insertion)  is  evincive  oi 
strong  anxiety,  but  without  despondency.  On  the  contrary,  it  speaks 
throughout  the  language  of  patriotic  firmness,  never  for  a  moment 
admitting  a  doubt  of  success.  Neither  does  it  attempt  to  disguise 
the  appalling  state  of  affairs.  The  naked  truth  is  told,  and  a  remedy 
proposed  for  every  calamity.  Among  the  numerous  vexations  which 
annoyed  Congress,  loud  and  frequent  complaints  refer  to  monopo- 
lizers, and  the  prodigality  of  the  inferior  officers,  both  civil  and  mili- 
tary. 

New  emissions  continued  until  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars 
were  in  circulation  at  one  time;  that  is  to  say,  seven  or  eight  times 
as  much  as  was  wanted  for  a  circulating  medium :  consisting,  too, 
of  bills  bearing  no  interest;  having  no  specific  fund  appropriated  for 
their  redemption ;  nothing,  in  short,  but  the  promises  of  a  govern- 
ment ill  organized,  and  in  a  state  of  revolution.  They  could  not  fail 
to  break  down.  No  patriotism,  however  ardent,  could  sustain  them. 
Yet  the  brave  men,  at  the  head  of  affairs,  went  into  a  computation 
suited  to  allay  the  fears  of  the  people,  and  showed  by  a  State  Paper, 
which  will  be  presently  cited,  that  resources  belonged  to  the  country 
sufficient  to  meet  all  demands. 

But  the  last  day  of  the  usefulness  of  Continental  Paper  Money  was 
fast  approaching.  The  bills  of  the  individual  States  had  generally 
become  so  worthless,  that  even  Congress  would  not  receive  them  into 
its  treasury.  Congressional  bills  were,  however,  kept  in  circulation 
at  a  great  discount  until  May,  1781,  when  they  fell  to  five  hundred, 
and  subsequently  to  one  thousand  paper  dollars  for  one  silver,  and 
ceased  as  a  currency.  Two  hundred  millions  lost  all  their  value, 
and  were  laid  aside. 

The  annihilation  was  so  complete,  that  barbers'  shops  were  pa- 


19 

^^ 

pered,  in  jest,  with  the  bills ;  and  the  sailors,  on  returning  from  their 
cruise,  being  paid  off  in  bundles  of  this  worthless  money,  had  suits 
of  clothes  made  of  it,  and  with  characteristic  lightheartedness  turned 
their  loss  into  a  frolic,  by  parading  through  the  streets  in  decayed 
finery,  which,  in  its  better  days,  had  passed  for  thousands  of  dol- 
lars ! 

The  campaign  of  1781  was  carried  on  in  solid  coin;  nevertheless 
the  bills  of  a  few  of  the  States  still  lingered  in  circulation.  I  have 
in  my  possession  the  receipt  of  Thomas  Knox,  dated  at  Boston  hi 
that  year,  for  three  thousand  three  hundred  dollars,  for  piloting  in 
and  out  of  port,  a  distance  of  nine  miles  each  way,  the  French 
frigate  UAstree,  commanded  by  the  celebrated  Laperouse.  The 
specie  price  was  twenty  dollars. 

I  possess,  likewise,  original  documentary  papers,  in  tabular  detail, 
showing  a  loss,  by  the  public  chest  of  Rochambeau's  army,  of  one 
million  six  hundred  and  sixty-one  thousand,  eight  hundred  and  se- 
venty-two dollars.  The  iritendant  of  the  army  endorsed  on  the 
bundles — "  This  paper  being  at  present  valueless,  the  loss  must  be 
charged  to  the  king."  But  it  must  be  recollected,  that  for  some 
years  its  most  favourable  discount  was  forty  for  one. 

In  General  Washington's  account  current  with  the  United  States, 
the  last  transaction  in  paper  currency  is  dated  May,  1781. 

The  discredit  and  final  rejection  of  that  money  was  owing,  in  a 
great  measure,  to  the  illiberal  terms  of  the  confederation.  Had  Con- 
gress possessed,  unfettered,  the  power  of  taxation  and  levying  of  im- 
posts, the  emissions  would  have  been  moderate,  and  somewhat  pro- 
portioned to  the  specie  in  the  country.  But  what  could  they  do 
under  such  a  compact  as  follows : — 

1st.  They  were  authorized  to  recommend  to  the  several  States, 


20 

and  nothing  more,  the  consent  of  every  one  of  which  was  necessary, 
to  give  legal  sanction  to  any  act  so  recommended. 

2dly.  They  could  not  assess  or  levy  taxes. 

3dly.  They  had  no  power  to  execute  punishments,  except  in  the 
military  department. 

4thly.  They  could  not  regulate  trade. 

5thly.  They  could  institute  no  general  judicial  powers. 

6thly.  Neither  could  they  regulate  public  roads,  or  inland  naviga- 
tion. 

With  such  an  inefficient  form  of  government,  they  failed  in  almost 
every  appeal  for  pecuniary  aid.  They  were  even  denied,  by  the 
single  veto  of  Rhode  Island,  the  establishment  of  an  impost  of  only 
five  per  cent,  on  imported  goods,  which,  after  great  difficulty  and 
delay,  had  been  ratified  by  all  the  other  States.  Unanimity  being 
a  constitutional  requirement,  that  measure,  so  obviously  necessary, 
so  moderate  in  its  amount,  so  gentle  and  equal  in  its  operation,  was 
defeated  by  the  negative  of  the  smallest  State  in  the  confederation. 
Nor  could  the  entreaty  of  Congress,  contained  in  a  long  argumenta- 
tive report,  addressed  to  Rhode  Island,  and  drawn  up  by  Alexander 
Hamilton,  James  Madison,  and  Thomas  Fitzsimmons,  cause  that 
State  to  retract.  A  letter  from  Benjamin  Franklin,  on  this  subject, 
dated  Passy,  December  23,  1782,  says:  "Our  people  certainly  ought 
to  do  more  for  themselves.  It  is  absurd  the  pretending  to  be  lovers 
of  liberty,  while  they  grudge  paying  for  the  defence  of  it.  It  is  said 
here,  that  an  impost  of  five  per  cent,  on  all  goods  imported,  though 
a  most  reasonable  proposition,  had  not  been  agreed  to  by  all  the 
States,  and  was,  therefore,  frustrated." 

Sustaining  the  bills  of  credit,  by  the  public,  under  such  circum- 
stances, and  for  the  length  of  time  they  did  so,  appears  to  me,  one 


21 

of  the  most  praiseworthy  passages  in  our  revolutionary  history, 
pregnant  alike  with  honour  to  our  forefathers  for  their  confidence  in 
the  illustrious  administrators  of  the  government,  and  with  fidelity  to 
the  glorious  cause  for  which  they  fought.  And  this  reliance  on  the 
honourable  intentions  of  the  Congress  of  that  day  is  fully  vindicated 
by  a  manifesto  issued  by  that  body,  which,  although  inserted  in  a 
former  essay  on  this  subject,  is,  from  the  noble  sentiments  it  con- 
tains, worthy  of  a  second  transcript  here^j 

"  Suppose,"  says  the  Congress  of  1779,  "that  at  the  conclusion  of 
the  war,  the  emissions  should  amount  to  two  hundred  millions ;  that 
the  loans  should  amount  to  another  hundred  millions ;  then  the  whole 
national  debt  of  the  United  States  would  be  three  hundred  millions. 
There  are  at  present  three  millions  of  inhabitants  in  the  thirteen 
States:  Three  hundred  millions  of  dollars  divided  among  three  mil- 
lions  of  people,  would  give  to  each  person  one  hundred  dollars.  And 
is  there,"  they  ask,  "  an  individual  in  America,  unable,  in  the  course 
of  eighteen  or  twenty  years,  to  pay  that  small  sum?  Again,  suppose 
the  whole  debt  assessed,  as  it  ought  to  be,  on  the  inhabitants,  in  pro- 
portion to  their  respective  estates,  what  would  then  be  the  share  of 
the  poorer  people  ?  Perhaps  not  ten  dollars  !  And  if  twenty  years  be 
taken  to  pay  the  debt,  the  number  of  inhabitants  will  be  more  than 
doubled,  and  the  ability  to  pay  increased,  of  course,  more  than  two- 
fold." 

This  encouraging  language  was  held  on  the  13th  of  September, 
1779.  Subsequently  they  recur  to  the  same  subject  thus:  "Paper 
money  is  the  only  kind  which  will  not  make  unto  itself  wings  and 
fly  away.  It  will  remain  with  us ;  it  will  not  forsake  us."  They 
then  repeat  their  conviction  of  the  ability  of  the  country  to  redeem 
it ;  and  having  pledged  for  the  support  of  independence  their  lives, 


22 

their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred  honour,  the  same  pledge  is  given  to 
the  public  for  the  full  payment  of  all  their  paper  emissions.  A  con- 
trary sentiment  is  rejected  with  scorn ;  and  proceeding  in  their  ad- 
dress, with  the  earnestness  of  honest  men,  they  speak  of  a  bankrupt, 
faithless  republic,  as  a  novelty  in  the  political  world.  "  It  would  ap- 
pear," say  they,  "  like  a  common  prostitute  among  chaste  and  re- 
spectable matrons.  The  pride  of  America  revolts  from  the  idea. 
Her  citizens  know  for  what  purposes  these  emissions  were  made, 
and  they  must  be  redeemed.  He  must  entertain  a  high  opinion  of 
American  credulity  who  supposes  the  people  capable  of  believing 
that  all  America  will  act  against  the  faith,  the  honour  and  the  inte- 
rest of  all  America.  Knowing,  as  we  all  do,  the  value  of  national 
character,  and  impressed  with  a  due  sense  of  the  immutable  laws  of 
justice  and  honour,  it  is  impossible  that  America  should  think,  with- 
out horror,  of  such  an  execrable  deed." 

Thus  spoke  the  band  of  able  statesmen  who  governed  in  those 
days.  No  thought  of  repudiation  was  for  a  moment  tolerated.  They 
had  created  the  paper  currency,  they  suggested  a  feasible  scheme  for 
its  redemption,  and  theyuheld  the  honest  purpose  of  executing  that 
scheme.  But  they  had  no  power.  The  jealousy  of  the  States  coun- 
teracted their  good  intentions.  What  THEY  could  not  redeem  them- 
selves, was  assumed  by  a  generous  constituency.  The  people  who 
bore  the  brunt  of  an  eight  years'  war,  and  victoriously  established 
independence,  sustained,  without  a  murmur,  the  whole  tax,  and  vo- 
luntarily reduced  to  utter  nothingness,  the  greatest  item  in  the  cost 
of  the  revolution ;  and  thus  waived  all  claim  upon  posterity  for  its 
payment. 

This  was,  undoubtedly,  a  severe  tax ;  yet,  when  examined  with 
care,  it  will  be  found  less  heavy  than  it  seems  at  first  sight.  Let  us 


23 

- — ? 

take  the  largest  sum,  by  which  the  people  could  ever  have  been  af- 
fected, say  three  hundred  millions,  at  twenty  for  one,  which  is  only 
half  the  rate  fixed  by  Congress.  Twenty  for  one  on  three  hundred 
millions,  will  give  fifteen  millions  of  sound  money.  These  fifteen 
millions  having  been  used  as  currency  for  six  years,  give  an  annual 
average  of  two  millions  and  a  half.  That  sum,  among  a  population 
of  three  millions,  would  not  be  a  poll  tax  of  one  dollar;  or  if  the 
three  millions  of  inhabitants  be  divided  into  families  of  six  persons 
each,  making  five  hundred  thousand  families,  the  annual  loss  per 
family  would  be  only  five  dollars !  In  all  probability  the  real  loss 
was  less  to  many,  than  this  proportion  ;  because  the  bills  passed 
with  great  activity,  from  hand  to  hand,  to  their  last  days,  even  when 
five  hundred  for  one;  never  remaining  locked  up,  nor  long  with- 
drawn from  circulation.  They  were  divided  too  into  small  sums, 
from  one  dollar  to  eighty,  and  always  convertible  at  the  current  ex- 
change, into  every  kind  of  real  and  personal  property ;  and  in  their 
hourly  rapid  passage,  leaving  with  each  temporary  possessor,  the  . 
trifling  loss  only  of  their  daily  depreciation. 

No  system  of  credit,  as  we  all  know  now  by  sad  experience,  can 
be  made  durable,  when  in  the  shape  of  currency  the  issues  exceed 
the  wants  of  a  medium  of  trade,  or  when  in  the  more  permanent 
form  of  bonds,  or  certificates  of  public  security,  they  come  forth, 
without  a  competent  tax  to  pay  the  interest,  and  a  sinking  fund  to 
discharge  the  principal.  The  over-issues  in  Continental  money 
being  excessive,  fell  off  in  value,  of  course,  while  as  a  natural  conse- 
quence, property  of  all  kinds  rose  in  proportion.  This  increase  of 
price  in  goods,  was  attempted  to  be  remedied  in  most  of  the  States,  by 
acts  of  limitation,  fixing  under  high  penalties  the  maximum  at  which 
property  should  be  sold.  These  ordinances  were  rigidly  executed- 


24 


Stores  were  broken  open  by  authorized  committees,  and  goods  seized 
and  sold  at  the  limited  legal  prices;  vrhile  the  owners  stood  accused 


before  the  public  of  a  design  to  depreciate  the  currency,  and  were 


called  tories  and  speculators,  and  otherwise  stigmatized  as  enemies 
to  their  country. 

But  those  high-handed  persecutions  and  robberies  did  not  arrest 
the  depreciation  on  one  side,  nor  the  appreciation  on  the  other. 
Money  sank  and  goods  rose.  Yet  ail  army  of  more  than  thirty 
thousand  men,  and  a  small  navy,  were  supported;  the  wheels  of 
government  kept  in  motion,  and  the  enemy  kept  at  bay !  How  could 
such  paper  funds  sustain  such  an  expense?  A  writer  in  the  year 
1779,  says,  "posterity  will  hardly  credit  it;  but,"  continues  he, 
"  the  universal  rage  and  zeal  of  the  people,  through  all  the  States, 
/  for  an  emancipation  from  a  power  that  claimed  a  right  to  bind  them 

in  all  cases  whatsoever,  supplied  all  defects,  and  made  apparent  im- 
possibilities, really  practicable." 

Another  great  error  was  the  making  this  money  a  legal  tender. 
It  was  a  source  of  immense  injustice  between  debtor  and  creditor. 
It  favoured  most,  in  the  language  of  a  cotemporary,  the  slack,  the 
dissipated,  the  lazy  and  dilatory,  who  paid  their  creditors  often  at 
one-twentieth  of  the  value  of  the  debt  when  it  was  contracted.  This 
sad  expedient  was  suggested  to  the  States  by  Congress  itself.  But 
that  body,  which  consisted  of  about  fifty  members,  whose  great  abili- 
ties and  spotless  integrity  stand  unimpeached,  had  the  candour  to 
confess  their  mistake,  and  urged  upon  the  States  an  immediate  re- 
peal, which  was,  after  much  solicitation,  effected;  yet  not  until 
thousands  of  fortunes  had  been  ruined,  including  chiefly  the  most 
generous  and  patriotic;  while  the  benefit  went  alone  to  the  avari- 
cious and  idle. v> 


25 

The  people  "  worried  and  fretted "  by  tender-laws,  limitation  of 
prices,  and  other  compulsory  means  used  by  the  States  to  force  the 
circulation,  and  bolster  up  the  value  of  paper,  occasionally  appeared 
heartless  and  out  of  patience.  That  feeling  prevailed  especially  at 
the  time  when  Congress,  in  1780,  recommended  a  monthly  tax  of 
fifteen  millions,  payable  in  specie  or  in  paper,  at  forty  for  one,  and 
was  the  cause  of  its  failure.  The  intention  of  this  act  was  to  destroy 
the  bills  as  they  came  in,  and  to  issue  other  bills  at  par,  bearing  an 
interest  of  six  per  cent.,  to  an  amount  not  exceeding  a  twentieth  part 
of  the  nominal  sum  thus  brought  in  to  be  destroyed. 

But  the  community  had  become  momentarily  paralyzed,  and  turned 
a  deaf  ear  to  all  new  projects.  They  stood,  as  an  eye-witness  says, 
"  amid  impending  destruction,  when  all  occupations  of  town  and 
country  were  nearly  at  a  stop."  Government,  not  having  the  power 
to  compel  the  payment  of  taxes,  could  only  entreat  or  menace.  In 
vain,  however,  did  they  proclaim,  threaten,  villify,  and  decree,  that 
"whoever  should  refuse  to  receive  in  payment  Continental  Bills, 
should  be  deemed  and  treated  as  an  enemy  of  his  country,  and  be 
precluded  from  all  trade  and  intercourse  with  the  inhabitants ;"  in 
other  words  be  outlawed:  in  vain  did  they  accompany  these  threats 
with  penal,  tender  and  limitation  laws,  associated  too  with  military 
force;  all  proved  ineffectual.  This  brow-beating  and  coercion 
seemed,  says  Peletiah  Webster,  who  wrote  in  1781,  "like  water 
sprinkled  on  a  blacksmith's  forge,  which  indeed  deadens  the  flame 
for  a  moment,  but  increases  the  heat  and  force  of  the  internal  fire." 
One  instance  of  arbitrary  power  flowed  from  those  laws  which  would 
disgrace  the  annals  of  an  absolute  government;  and  it  was  exercised 
too  by  Pennsylvania.  The  General  Assembly,  on  the  25th  March, 
1780,  issued  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  paper  bills  founded  on 
D 


26 

the  failh  of  the  State,  on  some  City  lots  in  Philadelphia,  and  on  the 
Province  island  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  Schuylkill,  which  at  that 
time  belonged  to  the  State  [hence  the  emission  was  called  island- 
money].  This  issue  was  followed  up  by  an  act,  dated  December 
23d,  of  the  same  year,  making  the  bills  a  legal  tender.  The  penalty 
for  not  taking  them  in  payment  of  goods,  lands,  &c.,  was  for 
the  first  offence,  forfeiture  of  double  the  sum  offered ;  and  for  the 
second  offence,  a  confiscation  of  half  the  offender's  lands,  goods  and 

Civ-XJ&V*^*^ 

chattels,  and  imprisonment  of  his  person  during  the  war.* 

Bad  as  the  Continental  Bills  had  become  in  the  latter  period  of 
their  existence,  they  always  bore  the  stamp  of  nationality,  and  passed 
currently  at  the  exchange  of  the  day  throughout  the  land;  whereas 
the  emissions  of  the  States,  made  on  their  individual  responsibility, 
and  at  various  rates  of  exchange,  were  not  received  beyond  the 
limits  of  each  State ;  so  that  one  State  would  not  take  the  bills  of 
another  State.  They  were  only  used  for  municipal  purposes  and 
local  trade,  as  wampum  had  been  in  the  early  days  of  Massachusetts 
and  other  parts  of  New  England,  bundles  of  tobacco  in  Virginia,  and 
stamped  wood  or  leather  elsewhere. 

Those  persons  who  happened  to  be  the  last  holders  of  the  Conti- 
nental Bills,  put  up  quietly  with  their  loss.  The  mighty  monster, 
as  that  expiring  currency  was  called  in  those  days,  departed  unla- 
mented.  An  attempt,  which  proved  abortive,  was  made  some  time 
after  to  dig  up  its  skeleton,  but  it  never  was  resuscitated.  Its  ser- 
vices when  alive  were  incalculable;  and  it  cannot  be  too  often  re- 
peated, that  it  saved  the  State,  and  gained  our  independence.  It 
was  the  cheap  price,  and  our  emancipation  the  rich  purchase.  To 

*  This  debt  was  subsequently  paid  in  full. 


27 

posterity  was  that  independence  transmitted,  by  those  who  achieved 
it  and  paid  for  it  by  bearing  the  whole  loss  on  the  paper  currency, 
which  was  the  principal  item  of  its  cost. 

The  Continental  Money  endured  for  nearly  six  years,  and  during 
that  long  period  worked  as  a  most  powerful  state-engine ;  and  was, 
says  a  writer  who  saw  its  operation,  "  a  prodigy  of  revenue,  and  of 
exceeding  mysterious  and  magical  agency.  Bubbles  of  a  like  sort, 
in  other  countries  lasted  but  a  few  months,  and  then  burst  into 
nothing ;  but  this  held  out  for  years,  and  seemed  to  retain  a  vigorous 
constitution  to  its  last ;  for  its  circulation  was  never  more  brisk  than 
just  before  it  died  at  five  hundred  for  one !  and  when  it  expired,  it  de- 
parted without  a  groan  or  struggle,  or  being  in  the  least  lamented." 

As  I  have  already  observed,  the  loss  was  divided  and  subdivided 
into  such  fractional  parts  during  the  five  or  six  years'  circulation  of 
the  millions  of  paper  dollars,  that  they  were  laid  aside,  not  only  un- 
paid and  unhonoured,  but  even  unwept.  The  people  were  tired  of 
the  daily  variation  of  prices,  and  felt  how  ridiculous  was  the  state 
of  a  currency  which  required  five  hundred  dollars  in  paper,  to  pay 
for  a  breakfast  that  could  be  bought  for  a  silver  half-dollar.  It  car- 
ried no  regret  with  it,  and  seems  doomed  to  sleep  in  silence,  un- 
friended and  unsung;  unless,  indeed,  some  attempt  be  now  and  then 
made  to  awaken  a  transient  touch  of  sympathy,  such  as  I  aim  at  in 
this  humble  sketch. 

With   it   disappeared    that   unjust   and   erroneous   legislation   of 
making  paper  money  a  legal  tender.     Happily,  such  tyranny  cannot     \  -X\ 
return :  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  forbidding  the  enact 
ment  of  laws  making  any  kind  of  money  a  tender,  except  gold  and 


^  silver. 

w 


• 


Vice  arid  immorality  were  greatly  encouraged,  no  doubt,  by  that 


28 

ever-varying  currency.     This  I  grant,  yet  something  I  hope  to  offer 
in  extenuation. 

We  cannot  deny  that  during  the  revolution  laws  were  broken, 
morals  debased,  and  the  nation  turned  into  a  gambling  community, 
which  upset  the  fortunes  of  thousands,  broke  down  trade,  paralyzed 
industry,  and  scattered  ruin  far  and  wide.  Our  own  historians  have 
dwelt  in  sorrowful  and  emphatic  terms  upon  those  sad  times;  nor 
are  the  notices  of  foreign  authors  less  instructive  and  interesting. 
Gordon,  in  his  history  of  the  Independence  of  the  United  States, 
says,  that  without  paper  money  the  Americans  could  not  have  car- 
ried on  the  war.  The  public  benefit  of  it  in  that  instance  will  com- 


pensate, in  the  estimation  of  patriotic  politicians,  for  the  immense 
evils  of  which  it  has  otherwise  been  the  occasion.  The  tender-laws 
on  one  hand,  and  depreciation  on  the  other,  rendered  it  the  bane 
of  society.  All  classes  were  infected.  It  produced  a  rage  for  spe- 
culation. The  mechanic,  the  fanner,  the  lawyer,  the  physician,  the 
member  of  Congress,  and  even  a  few  of  the  clergy,  in  some  places, 
were  contaminated.  The  morals  of  the  people  were  corrupted  be- 
yond any  thing  that  could  have  been  believed,  prior  to  the  event. 
All  ties  of  honour,  blood,  gratitude,  humanity  and  justice  were  dis- 
solved. Old  debts  were  paid  when  the  paper  money  was  more  than 
seventy  for  one.  Brothers  defrauded  brothers,  children  parents,  and 
parents  children.  Widows,  orphans,  and  others,  were  paid  for  mo- 
ney lent  in  specie,  with  depreciated  paper,  which  they  were  compel- 
led to  received.  A  person  who  had  been  supplied  with  specie,  in  the 
jail  of  Philadelphia,  while  the  British  had  possession  of  the  city,  re- 
paid it  in  paper  at  a  tenth  part  of  its  value. 

Stedman,  an  officer  in  Cornwallis'  army,  who  wrote  an  account  of 
the  American  War,  treats  this  subject  copiously  and  impartially.     I 


29 

omit,  however,  some  extracts  that  I  had  prepared,  in  order  to  intro- 
duce the  opinion  of  a  distinguished  Frenchman,  made  up  from  per- 
sonal association  with  the  American  people  when  in  the  height  of  the 
Revolutionary  War.  But  before  I  transcribe  his  judgment  of  our 
countrymen,  I  may  remark,  that  at  one  period  of  the  contest  there 
was,  as  is  conceded  in  the  Journals  of  Congress,  an  absence  of  exer- 
tion approaching  to  dangerous  indifference,  and  which  elicited  strong 
appeals  from  that  body.  This  apathy  attracted  the  attention  of 
foreigners  employed  in  our  army,  and  became  the  subject  of  an  of- 
ficial communication  from  one  of  them,  Mons.  Du  Portail,  who  was 
Colonel  in  the  French  service,  and  Brigadier  General  in  the  Ameri- 
can army.  He  resided  many  years  in  Pennsylvania  after  the  peace 
of  1783,  and  in  1791  returned  to  France,  where  he  became  minister 
at  war.  The  despatch,  from  which  I  take  the  following  extracts,  is 
dated  at  the  encampment  at  White  Marsh,  12th  November,  1777, 
and  is  addressed  to  the  Comte  de  St.  Germain,  the  then  minister  of 
war  to  Louis  XVI.,  and  is  marked  private. 

A  Monseigneur  le  Comte  de  St.  Germain,  ministre  de  la  guerre. 
[Pour  vous  seulement,  Monseigneur.] 

"  Les  Americains  reussiront-ils  a  se  rendre  libres,  ou  non?  En 
France,  ou  Ton  ne  peut  juger  que  par  les  fails,  on  jugera  pour  1'affir- 
mative.  Nous,  qui  avons  vu  comment  les  choses  se  sont  passees,  ne 
penserons  pas  de  meme.  A  parler  franchement,  ce  n'est  pas  par  la 
bonne  conduite  des  Americains,  que  la  campagne  en  general  s'est 
terminee  assez  heureusement ;  mais  par  la  faute  des  Anglois." 

"Avant  la  guerre,  les  peuples  Americains,  sans  vivre  dans  le  luxe, 
jouissoient  de  tout  ce  qui  est  necessaire  pour  rendre  la  vie  agreable 
et  heureuse.  Us  passoient  une  grande  partie  de  leurs  temps  a  fumer 
et  a  boire  du  the,  ou  des  liqueurs  spiritueuses.  Telles  etoient  les 


30 

habitudes  de  ces  peuples.  II  ne  seroit  done  pas  surprenant,  que  le 
changement  d'une  vie  effeminee,  transformee  subitcment  en  cclle  de 
guerrier,  qui  est  dure  et  penible,  leur  fit  preferer  le  joug  des  Anglois, 
a  une  liberte  achctee  aux  depens  des  douceurs  de  la  vie.  Ce  que  je 
vous  dis,  ne  peut  que  vous  surprendre,  Monseigneur,  mais  tel  est  ce 
peuple,  qui,  mou,  sans  energie,  sans  vigueur,  sans  passion  pour  la 
cause  dans  laquelle  il  s'est  engage,  ne  la  soutient  que  parcequ'il  suit 
1'impulsion  qu'on  lui  a  premierement  donnee.  II  y  a  cent  fois  plus 
d'enthousiasme  pour  cette  revolution  dans  quel  cafe  de  Paris  que  ce 
soit,  qu'il  n'y  en  a  dans  les  provinces  unies  ensemble.  II  est  done 
necessaire,  pour  achever  cette  Revolution,  que  la  France  fournisse  a 
ce  peuple,  tout  ce  qui  lui  est  necessaire,  afin  qu'il  trouve  la  guerre 
moins  dure  a  sontenir.  II  est  vraie  qu'il  lui  en  coutera  quelque  mil- 
lions ;  mais  ils  seront  bien  employes  en  aneantissant  le  pouvoir  de 
PAngleterre,  qui  depouillee  de  ces  colonies,  sans  marine,  et  sans 
commerce,  perdra  sa  grandeur,  et  laissera  la  France  sans  rivale." 

"  En  considerant  la  chose  en  general,  il  me  paroit  que  ce  qui  se 
passe  maintenant  en  Amerique,  doit  degouter  les  Europeens,  d'avoir 
aucune  affaire  a  demeler  avec  les  colonies  de  ce  continent." 

"Le  Congres  m'a  eleve  au  rang  de  Brigadier  General." 

These  extracts,  placed  here  in  the  original  French,  I  translate  as 
follows : — 

"Will,  or  will  not,  the  Americans  obtain  their  independence?  In 
France,  where  things  are  estimated  according  to  the  naked  facts  of 
passing  events,  they  will  answer  affirmatively.  But  we,  who  see 
how  things  are  managed  here,  think  differently.  To  be  candid,  I 
must  say  that  it  is  not  owing  to  the  good  conduct  of  the  Americans 
that  the  campaign  closed  with  tolerable  success,  but  rather  in  conse- 
quence of  the  blunders  committed  by  the  English." 


31 

"Before  the  war  the  Americans,  without  living  in  luxury,  pos- 
sessed every  thing  necessary  to  make  life  agreeable  and  happy. 
They  passed  a  great  part  of  their  time  in  smoking,  drinking  tea  and 
spirituous  liquors.  Such  was  the  customary  habits  of  this  people. 
Is  it  surprising,  then,  that  a  sudden  change  from  such  effeminacy  to 
the  rugged  and  painful  duty  of  a  warrior,  should  lead  them  to  prefer 
the  yoke  of  the  English,  to  freedom  bought  at  the  cost  of  all  those 
comforts  of  life?  What  I  am  about  to  say,  my  lord,  may  surprise 
you,  but  such  is  the  fact:  this  is  a  sluggish  people,  without  energy, 
without  vigour,  without  affection  for  the  cause  in  which  they  are  en- 
gaged, and  which  they  sustain  simply  by  the  impulse  or  influence 
which  put  them  in  motion  at  the  outset.  There  is  an  hundred  times 
more  enthusiasm  for  the  revolution,  in  any  one  coffee-house  what- 
ever in  Paris,  than  in  all  the  United  States  put  together.  It  will, 
therefore,  be  expedient,  in  order  to  finish  the  revolution,  that  France 
should  supply  this  country  with  every  thing  necessary,  so  as  to  re- 
lieve the  people  from  the  burden  of  the  war.  It  will  cost  France  a 
few  millions,  but  they  will  be  well  employed  in  annihilating  the 
power  and  authority  of  the  English,  who,  when  stripped  of  their 
colonies  and  their  commerce,  will  lose  their  greatness,  and  leave 
France  without  a  rival." 

"  Upon  duly  considering  the  general  aspect  of  affairs,  it  appears  to 
me  that  what  is  passing  in  America  is  suited  to  disgust  Europeans, 
and  prevent  their  interfering  in  the  concerns  of  the  colonies  of  this 
continent." 

Such  is  the  picture  of  our  countrymen,  drawn  by  a  Gallo- Ameri- 
can officer.  I  intended  to  have  added  some  extracts  from  the  French 
pens  of  Brissot  de  Warville,  the  Duke  de  Liancourt,  and  Messrs. 
Volney  and  Talleyrand;  but  I  have  already  reached  the  limits 


32 

usually  assigned  to  papers  communicated  in  this  form,  and  will  only 
add,  in  reference  to  Monsieur  Du  Portail's  opinions,  that  his  prejudice 
and  ignorance  may  be  found  repeated  and  amplified  in  the  writings 
of  all  the  above  named  distinguished  foreigners:  whose  fanciful  theo- 
ries, presumptuous  prophecies,  and  absurd  conclusions,  have  turned 
out,  in  the  march  of  time,  only  the  more  glaringly  false  and  prepos- 
terous, the  one  than  the  other !  Those  indolent  Americans  of  Du 
Portail  have  continued  to  be,  what  they  always  were,  intelligent, 
brave,  industrious  and  enterprising.  Some  passing  relaxation  of  re- 
volutionary zeal  may  have  happened,  when  the  ardour  of  the  people 
fell  short  of  the  wishes  of  their  more  eager  rulers;  but,  in  the  main, 
our  countrymen  have  not  been  sluggish,  and  certainly  were  never 
indifferent  on  the  subject  of  their  independence.  How  could  it  be  so, 
when,  with  the  "go  ahead"  motto  in  their  hearts  and  in  their  actions, 
they  have  built  up  an  empire  as  powerful  and  populous,  at  this  day, 
as  was  France  itself,  when  our  fathers  first  landed  on  the  shores  of 
Virginia  and  on  the  rock  of  Plymouth  ?  A  space  of  time  from  that 
period  to  this,  for  the  creation  of  a  nation  of  nearly  twenty  millions 
of  people,  not  greater  than  two  lives  of  Russian  longevity! 

Our  own  Revolutionary  Congress,  as  we  have  seen,  looked 
"  with  horror  on  the  execrable  deed"  of  leaving  their  bills  unpaid. 
More  sensitive  on  this  head  than  their  constituents,  they  trusted 
to  posterity  for  their  honourable  discharge:  that  posterity,  never- 
theless, down  to  the  present  generation,  have  never  bestowed  a 
thought  upon  the  pledged  faith  of  their  illustrious  fathers.  They 
neglected,  even  in  the  palmy  days  of  "  high  built  abundance,"  with 
"  heap  on  heap"  in  their  treasury — those  days  when  the  States,  in- 
dividually, were  solicited  to  relieve  the  general  government  of  its 
vast  surplus  revenue — they  neglected,  even  then,  to  look  back  upon 


33 

that  just  debt,  and  to  remember  favourably  those  bills  that  stood 
guard,  as  it  were,  in  times  of  imminent  danger;  answering  the  calls 
of  every  department  of  government  and  of  the  people  in  their  various 
occupations;  carrying  us  through  the  perils  of  a  long  war,  with 
pledge  upon  pledge  that  they  should  be  honourably  paid  in  the 
calmer  days  of  peace.  They  did  nothing !  nothing ! ! 

But  has  not  " Honour"  the  moral  conscience  of  a  State,"  been 
sometimes  forfeited  elsewhere  as  well  as  among  us?  Painful  as  this 
confession  is,  in  reference  to  our  own  country,  similar  examples  of 
shame  and  reproach,  the  result,  not  of  dire  necessity,  but  of  high- 
handed fraud,  may  be  traced  in  the  history  of  other  countries.  I 
do  not  place  them  here,  however,  in  vindication  of  ourselves,  but 
to  disqualify  those  European  nations,  where  they  have  occurred, 
from  pointing  the  finger  of  scorn  at  America. 

In  Burnet's  history  of  his  own  times,  we  find  that  Charles  II.  shut 
up  his  exchequer  for  two  years,  and  scattered  dismay  and  ruin 
throughout  his  kingdom.  Actions  commenced  against  debtors  were 
not  allowed  to  proceed  :  bankers  were  broken,  and  trade  paralyzed. 
The  same  historian  alludes  to  the  disastrous  explosion  of  the  South 
Sea  Company,  with  which  may  be  coupled  John  Laws'  Bank  and 
Mississippi  land  scheme,  the  shares  of  which,  in  1718,  rose  to 
twenty  times  their  original  value,  and  then  sank  to  nothing.  But 
two  operations  by  France,  upon  a  stupendous  scale,  are  precisely  in 
point,  and  possess  a  perfect  resemblance  to  Continental  Money,  both 
for  the  good  they  effected,  and  for  their  subsequent  extinction  without 
being  redeemed.  The  first  was  an  emission  by  the  constituent  as- 
sembly of  France,  in  1790,  of  a  paper  money  called  assignat, 
which,  although  based,  in  general  terms,  on  the  proceeds  of  the  sale 


34 

of  the  confiscated  goods  of  the  church,  were  so  lavishly  issued,  as  to 
increase  to  the  incredible  sum  of  forty  thousand  millions  of  livres, 
when  they  depreciated  to  nothing.  Then  followed  a  second  kind  of 
paper  money,  called  mandate,  which  even  the  guillotine  of  Robes- 
pierre could  not  sustain.  They  were  founded,  like  the  assignat,  on 
confiscated  property;  and  two  thousand  four  hundred  millions  of 
livres  were  issued,  which,  after  defraying  the  expense  of  one  cam- 
paign, lost  all  their  value. 

Philip  V.,  the  first  Bourbon  prince  who  reigned  in  Spain,  left  a 
debt  of  forty-five  millions  of  piastres,  which  his  successor  refused  to 
acknowledge,  and  it  was  left  unpaid. 

After  the  battle  of  the  12th  of  April,  1782,  between  De  Grasse 
and  Rodney,  the  shattered  remnant  of  the  French  fleet,  under  the 
Marquis  de  Vaudreuil,  came  to  Boston.  Its  outfit  and  re-embarka- 
tion of  Rochambeaux's  army  occasioned  a  vast  expense,  which  was 
paid  by  bills  on  the  French  treasury.  They  were  drawn  at  the  cus- 
tomary usance  of  sixty  days,  but  the  government  of  France  post- 
poned  their  payment  for  twelve  months;  and  to  protect  the  mer- 
chants who  had  negotiated  them,  from  damages,  the  king  retained 
the  bills,  and  forbade  his  notaries  making  any  protest. 

The  men  of  1776,  upon  whom  cotemporary  writers,  in  both  Eng- 
land and  France,  have  heaped  so  much  opprobrium,  and  whom  we, 
on  the  contrary,  delight  to  honour  and  praise,  were  they  better  or 
worse  than  their  descendants? 

The  general  sentiment  is,  I  think,  that  we  are,  at  the  present  day, 
less  strict  in  the  observance  of  the  moral  duties  of  life ;  less  moderate 
and  honest  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth:  in  short,  that  we  are  a  degene- 
rate race.  But  in  all  this  I  believe  there  is  a  mistake ;  and  I  will 
endeavour  to  show  that  we,  of  the  living  generation,  stand  for  good. 


35 

in  a  scale  as  well  balanced  against  evil,  as  the  men  of  the  last  cen- 
tury; and  in  the  exercise  of  many  virtues  surpass  them. 

It  is  said  to  be  an  infirmity  of  old  age,  to  estimate  unfavourably 
"the  sayings  and  doings"  of  the  present  time;  and  to  refer  back  to 
the  days  of  early  life  for  bright  examples  in  manners  and  morals. 
I  am  an  old  man,  and  I  do  not  attest  by  my  judgment  or  feelings, 
the  truth  of  that  adage.  The  present  race,  the  men  now  in  active 
influence,  who  form  this  great  nation,  are  said  to  have  declined  in 
moral  worth ;  to  have  dishonoured  by  cunning  and  crime  the  cause 
of  republicanism,  and  disgraced  the  good  name  which  their  revolu- 
tionary fathers  had  established  and  transmitted. 

I  offer  the  following  vindication. 

My  recollection  goes  back  pretty  distinctly  more  than  sixty  years, 
and  I  can  aver  that  crimes  of  as  deep  a  dye  were  committed  in  those 
days,  as  strike  us  with  such  horror  when  they  now  occur.  But 

iS 

there  did  not  exist  then  a  legion  of  newspapers,  with  agents  in  all 
directions,  eager  to  collect,  exaggerate  and  publish ;  and  of  course 
they  were  not  circulated.  The  utmost  extravagance  of  our  times  in 
speculation  by  corporations  even,  can  be  matched  by  individuals  * 
who  lived  fifty  years  ago.  Public  securities  were  made  to  vary 
from  two  to  twenty-eight  shillings  on  the  pound;  private  associa- 
tions were  formed  in  all  the  chief  towns  to  forestall  more  than  half 
the  capital  of  the  first  Bank  of  the  United  States,  by  purchasing 
as  high  as  thirty  per  cent,  advance  on  the  par  value,  the  funded 
debt  which  was  to  constitute  the  larger  part  of  the  stock  of  that 
bank.  The  excitement  was  great;  the  project  failed,  and  extensive 
ruin  followed. 

| 

But  extravagant  as  were  the  operations  in  stocks,  they  fell  far 
short  of  the  speculations  in  land.  Half  of  Western  New  York,  large 


36 

tracts  in  Pennsylvania,  North  Carolina,  and  elsewhere,  amounting 
to  many  millions  of  acres,  were  purchased  by  individuals  as  mono- 
polists. Phelps  and  Gorham  from  the  east,  Morris,  Nicholson, 
Greenleaf,  Wilson,  and  others,  in  the  middle  States,  making  Phila- 
delphia their  head  quarters,  acquired  and  held  for  a  short  time  such 
vast  possessions,  that  the  debts  of  Nicholson,  yet  unliquidated,  are 
said  to  amount  to  twelve  millions  of  dollars.  Barry  and  Law  aimed 
at  purchasing  the  whole  City  of  Washington,  in  1798.  Wilson 
gave  a  single  bond  for  a  million  two  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
bearing  six  per  cent,  interest ;  and  that  was  but  one  item  in  his  vast 
negotiations.  The  immense  loss  by  these  speculators,  all  of  whom 
failed,  did  not  fall  short,  perhaps,  of  those  by  banks  in  our  times  ; 
and  those  losses  were  inflicted  upon  a  nation  of  less  than  five  mil- 
lions of  inhabitants.  Robert  Morris,  too,  whose  public  career  had 
been  so  splendid,  and  whose  downfall  may  be  mentioned  at  this  dis- 
tant period  without  indelicacy,  since  it  is  matter  of  history,  spent 
four  years  a  prisoner  in  our  debtor's  apartment,  while  Wilson, 
whose  ruin  was  as  complete,  died  in  confinement  for  debt  in  North 
Carolina.  All  their  colleagues  and  adjuncts  went  to  destruction,  to 
the  incalculable  loss  of  the  very  many  who  trusted  them. 

What  shall  we  say  of  lotteries,  then  a  universal  expedient  for 
raising  money ;  licensed  gambling  shops  authorized  by  every  State 
in  the  Union,  and  now  as  universally  suppressed. 

In  politics,  slow  as  we  may  be  in  believing  it,  there  was  half  a 
century  ago,  more  violence,  more  marked  separation  in  social  life, 
more  virulent  hatred — infinitely  more,  than  now.  What  aged  man 
can  forget  the  heart-burning  and  outrage  before  and  during  the  days 
of  the  black  cockade,  when  that  badge  was  worn  as  the  signal  of  de- 
fiance from  one  party  to  the  other !  Then,  were  the  presses  of  Peter 


37 

Porcupine  and  his  opponents  in  full  action,  and  licentious  to  a  de- 
gree never  yet  surpassed.  In  Congress,  on  the  floor  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  vulgar  scuffling,  and  indecent  personalities,  dis- 
graced that  body.  We  may  name  as  a  prominent  example,  the 
contest  between  Matthew  Lyon  and  Griswold.  Burr  in  the  Senate, 
and  Hamilton  in  the  Cabinet,  agitated  the  whole  nation  by  their 
violent  jarring,  which  ended  in  the  death  of  the  latter  by  the  hand 
of  the  former.  Compare  the  riotous  elections  of  those  days  when 
federalism  and  anti-federalism  engendered  such  party  heat,  with  the 
quiet  ballot  of  the  great  national  election  of  1840,  when  two  millions 
and  a  half  of  votes  were  given,  without  commotion  or  disorder. 

And  how  can  we  sufficiently  congratulate  ourselves  on  the  im- 
provement in  temperance!  None  can  estimate  its  importance  so 
well  as  the  aged.  Fifty  years  ago,  it  was  no  disgrace  for  young 
men  to  visit  a  party  of  ladies  stupefied  or  elevated  by  wine.  Modern 
manners  would  not  tolerate  this.  Male  servants  were  generally 
given  to  drunkenness :  and  until  arrested  by  temperance  associations, 
intoxication  was  threatening  us  with  universal  sway. 

But  it  is  in  religion  that  the  most  impressive  and  most  salutary  re- 
formation has  taken  place.  This  is  attested  by  the  great  increase  of 
piety,  and  consequent  increase  of  churches.  Those  holy  temples 
now  filled  with  devout  attendants,  were  then  few  in  number  and 
sadly  neglected.  At  the  period  of  our  revolution,  the  superstition 
and  cruelty  of  witchcraft  was  only  passing  away,  to  be  succeeded  by 
religious  indifference,  and  even  rank  infidelity. 

Recollect,  for  a  moment,  Frederick  of  Prussia,  surrounded  by  Vol- 
taire, D'Argens,  Maupertuis,  and  in  correspondence  with  D'Alembert 
and  the  Parisian  encyclopedists ;  in  England,  Hume,  Godwin,  and  his 
wife,  Mary  Woolstoncraft ;  in  America,  Thomas  Paine !  All  uniting 


38 

to  deride  and  destroy  Christianity,  by  ridiculing  its  ministers  and 
holy  doctrines,  in  writings  of  unrestrained  freedom ;  by  unsettling  the 
belief  of  the  religious,  and  confirming  the  unfaithful ;  by  presump- 
tuously putting  man's  feeble  reason  in  the  place  of  divine  revelation. 

Set  in  contrast  with  those  licentious  times,  the  awakened  piety  of 
this  day,  in  every  church  of  every  sect.  Crowds  of  worshippers  tes- 
tify to  the  truth  of  their  amendment,  by  regular  and  zealous  devotion 
in  those  seats,  which  were  formerly  deserted.  This  salutary  change 
will  check  the  progress  of  crime.  It  has  checked  it.  Isolated  in- 
stances of  high  offences  are  no  proof  to  the  contrary.  The  people 
collectively  become  more  sober  in  t^eir  habits,  and  more  serious  in 
the  worship  of  God,  will  find  those  plague-spots  which  continue  to 
disfigure  their  moral  character,  gradually  removed,  by  the  joint  in- 
-  fluence  of  temperance  and  religion. 

One  distinctive  mark  of  refined  civilization  has  been  allowed  to 
form  a  national  trait,  by  universal  consent,  abroad  and  at  home ; 
namely,  the  deference  paid  to  woman. 

Every  where,  within  the  wide  range  of  our  country,  she  is  defend- 
ed and  protected.  It  is  a  generous  virtue,  which  foreigners  agree, 
one  and  all,  to  allow  us.  A  female  may  traverse  the  country  alone, 
and  visit  every  point  of  the  compass,  in  perfect  personal  security, 
and  be  certain  of  meeting  always  with  attention  and  respect;  having 
no  other  protector,  in  the  steamers  and  on  rail-roads,  than  their  cap- 
tains and  agents.  This  is  notorious  and  of  every  day  occurrence. 
Virtuous  women,  young  and  handsome,  start  alone,  and  without 
fear,  from  the  Missouri,  to  descend  to  New  Orleans  in  the  south,  or 
wend  their  way  to  the  Atlantic,  up  the  Ohio,  amid  a  motley  compa- 
ny of  entire  strangers,  and  thus  traverse  thousands  of  miles,  unap- 
prehensive of  rudeness  or  interruption. 


39 

In  conclusion,  let  us  hope  that  this  improvement  in  morals,  will 
eventually  act  as  a  corrective  on  the  temporary  defalcation  in  the 
public  engagements,  which  now  exist  in  parts  of  our  country ;  ever 
bearing  in  mind  that  at  the  adoption  of  our  national  Constitution, 
there  was  a  public  debt  of  ninety-four  millions,  the  interest  on  which  * 
had  not  been  paid  for  six  years,  and  the  principal  was  currently  sold 
at  the  reduced  price  of  twelve  dollars  for  one  hundred ;  yet  the  whole 
was  paid  at  par.  A  similar  redemption  awaits,  I  trust,  the  depre- 
ciated State  debts  of  the  present  day. 

T 

The  paper  money  of  the  revolution,  however,  was  of  a  character 
wholly  dissimilar.  It  was  a  depreciated  medium  almost  during  its 
whole  existence ;  and  having  sunk  gradually  to  nothing,  could  never 
possess  the  claim  for  redemption  that  belongs  to  a  bond,  for  which 
full  value,  as  expressed  on  its  face,  was  paid  to  government. 

But  while  that  artificial  currency  lasted,  it  was  a  happy  illusion, 
which  worked  the  miracle  of  reality.  Without  its  agency,  we  should 
have  been  subdued,  and  have  crept  along,  at  a  colonial  pace,  as 
Canada  has  done.  Without  it,  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  would 
have  remained  a  wilderness;  the  Spaniards  would  still  have  been 
masters  of  the  great  outlets  of  the  south ;  our  manufactures  would  \ 
not  have  been  allowed  to  reach  even  to  the  making  of  a  hobnail,  and 
our  star-spangled  banner  would  never  have  been  unfurled. 

The  cause  for  which  the  defunct  old  Continental  Money  was  put  . 
forth,  has  been  gained.  It  has  prevented  our  subjugation,  and  placed 
us  on  the  proud  eminence  we  now  occupy.  Those  who  bore  its 
burden,  when  in  transit,  bore  it  cheerfully;  and  made  it  the  happy 
instrument  of  our  national  existence.  In  cherishing,  with  filial  affec- 
tion, the  memory  of  those  brave  men,  we  may  pass  by  their  faults 


40 

with  indulgence ;  always  resolving  to  cling  with  constancy  and  love, 
to  the  privilege  of  self-government,  which  they  thus  won  and  trans- 
mitted to  us. 

May,  1843. 

^   ^ 

I 


FOURTEEN  DAY  USE 

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